


and a current runs between

by jenwryn



Category: S.C.I.谜案集 | S.C.I. Mystery (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Kink Exploration, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rope Bondage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:47:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenwryn/pseuds/jenwryn
Summary: “I don’t want to tie you up,” says Zhao Zhen.  “I want you to tie me up.”
Relationships: Bái Chí/Zhào Zhēn
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	and a current runs between

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'ropes' on my Season of Kink bingo card. :)
> 
> Thank you to K. for helping me out with this ages ago, when I first started it, aaaand also for reminding me to get back to it this week. I've changed a bunch of stuff since it was looked over, though, so any mistakes remaining – as is always the case anyway – are entirely mine.

He’s not expecting the rope. 

It’s not that Bai Chi is surprised, exactly. Zhao Zhen is— Zhao Zhen is Zhao Zhen. He’s exciting and he’s startling and, if things have been comfortably vanilla between them, well… well, some part of Bai Chi has been interpreting that as Zhao Zhen being kind.

Bai Chi has given the matter rather a lot of thought, actually. It’s been nagging at him, ticking away in the back of his always-busy mind: wondering how much of their sex life is his boyfriend being considerate. He just hasn’t found a way to say, _I’d imagined you were much kinkier than this, and I know you’re being nice, but it’s really bothering me, and it’s also sort of patronising given some of the weird stuff you’ve done to me_ outside _of bed. If you _are_ kinkier, that is_. It’s a bit too much inside of his own brain, is the thing, let alone attempting to speak it out loud.

It’s certainly not that he feels like he’s missing out on anything. He’s happy. He’s— he’s more than happy, with Zhao Zhen’s hands and mouth and dick, with _Zhao Zhen_ , however he’s offered to him; he’s ecstatic—

He’s been doing his research anyway, you know?

Bai Chi is good at research. 

And it’s not as though Zhao Zhen has voiced any complaints, either. But Bai Chi just likes to be prepared, and it turns out that people online are really, _really_ thorough when they write how-to guides for their kinks, for which he’s deeply grateful, and now—

And now there is rope on their bed.

There is also Zhao Zhen, sitting quietly beside it. 

Zhao Zhen has his legs drawn up beneath him, in a way that is both no-doubt-intentionally decorative and also almost certainly comfortable. Bai Chi suspects he’s been waiting for a while.

He also knows that Zhao Zhen has been watching him since he entered the room. He does that a lot: reading faces in a deliberate, considered way. Bai Chi could just keep worrying at the finger in his mouth, rather than speak, and his boyfriend would understand him anyway. 

Zhao Zhen has that patient look on his face, though, when Bai Chi finally meets his gaze properly; he’s doing that thing, where his eyes are widened just a little, almost anticipatory; definitely having fun. The shape of his mouth has _undertones_ to it, pink and wicked.

Bai Chi realises that this is one of those times where he is going to have to use his words. He knows that the man in front of him likes to hear them, anyway; simply connecting the dots himself is apparently wildly unsatisfactory, in comparison.

For someone who has no problem teasing Bai Chi in public, he’s turned out to be oddly invested in clarifying feelings.

And Bai Chi— Bai Chi has found that he likes that. That he likes to be heard, perhaps even more than he likes to be understood.

“I… I don’t think that I really… want to be tied up?” he says, eventually. He resents that it comes out like a question. His lips feel dry.

A smile begins to curve its way across Zhao Zhen’s face. He tips his head to one side, hair swaying. He waits, expectantly. Prettily.

Bai Chi feels awkward. He sits down at the end of the bed, to give his body something to do, and touches the rope with a finger. It is soft, even softer than it looks; the kind of soft that probably won’t mar skin as easily as regular rope does. He licks at his lips, uncomfortable. Says, “It feels like… it feels like something that would happen to me at work. On a really bad day. When things have gone… terribly wrong.”

The smile on Zhao Zhen’s face, when Bai Chi looks sideways, is warm and mellow, but still somehow wicked, as though Bai Chi’s response is exactly the one that he had anticipated; as though he finds it— not amusing, exactly, but delightful regardless.

They have been working on Bai Chi not presuming he is being mocked, when mocking is not obviously the intent, and so he asks, “What? Why are you looking at me like that?” He needs to know, needs to understand, what it is that is making his boyfriend’s eyes gleam all dark and mischievous.

“I don’t want to tie _you_ up,” says Zhao Zhen, “though of course I _would_ , if you were into that.” He unfolds his legs from beneath himself and shifts— a graceful movement that takes his body across the space between them, across the soft, burgundy rope, and lets him settle in behind Bai Chi. He kneels there, spread thighs bracketed around Bai Chi’s hips, and rests his warm front up against Bai Chi’s back. His voice, when he continues speaking, is hot near Bai Chi’s ear. “I want you to tie _me_ up. If you were willing.”

Bai Chi’s brain stutters, takes a moment, and then comes back online with a shockingly clear image of Zhao Zhen, naked, spread across their bed, his lovely, tricky hands tied up above his head. Bai Chi _likes_ those hands — likes the way they touch, likes the way they tease, likes the way they make his mind go still — but he… isn’t averse to this scenario either, apparently.

He must make a small noise, some kind of pleased or positive little sound. 

Zhao Zhen hums, approvingly, and snakes his arms around Bai Chi, fingers sliding into the gaps between the buttons on his checkered shirt.

He lets his weight lean back onto Zhao Zhen’s steady chest. Enjoys the sensation of thighs tightening around him. 

“You’d need to tell me, um, how you want it,” Bai Chi says, quietly, resting his head back against Zhao Zhen’s shoulder. He turns his face into Zhao Zhen’s neck; lets his lips rest comfortably against the warm skin there. He breathes in the familiar scents of expensive face cream and conditioner, and the body beneath them. “I’ve done some reading,” he admits, colouring slightly. “I know the theory. But the practise…”

Zhao Zhen makes a pleased sound.

Bai Chi moves his lips, shifting from comfort to kissing. He can feel it, when Zhao Zhen swallows.

“You’re a quick learner,” says Zhao Zhen, confident and warm, “I’ve got no concerns.” He undoes the buttons on Bai Chi’s shirt carefully, slowly, one at a time, the way that makes Bai Chi feel good, and grounded. He slides his hands across Bai Chi’s chest. Strokes them down. Slips his thumbs beneath the band of Bai Chi’s trousers. 

They are good at this, despite what the voice in Bai Chi’s head had insinuated before he’d moved in ( _he won’t want you, once he’s had you; all the bright magic and finger-kisses won’t mean anything once he’s seen below the surface of you, once he’s seen_ you). 

_Bai Chi_ is good at this.

(Zhao Zhen’s not wrong, after all: he _is_ a fast learner. Bai Chi had even joked, in the beginning — a joke-not-joke, anxieties speaking, his mouth pressed against long, dark hair — that it would be Zhao Zhen’s own fault if he didn’t find him good in bed, since Zhao Zhen has been his only teacher. It feels less like a joke, now. It feels more like a… feels more like a _thing_ , like a nebulous, powerful thing, that Bai Chi can know, so perfectly, so bespoke, how to make Zhao Zhen writhe and moan.)

They move, now: quietly. Bai Chi rises and turns. Zhao Zhen wriggles backwards on the bed, making space for him against his body, and Bai Chi knees his way into it. Zhao Zhen folds his open shirt back a ways; kisses his shoulder, where only they can see; marking him, gently, secretly, the way Bai Chi likes. Bai Chi tangles his hands into Zhao Zhen’s hair, stroking and pulling, the way Zhao Zhen likes. They are good at this; are good at each other.

Today, though, Zhao Zhen finishes undressing quickly — a flash of silver as his fingers work — while Bai Chi sits back, still clothed, shirt hanging open and the marks upon him already darkening. He finds himself unexpectedly hesitating.

“It’s okay,” says Zhao Zhen. He brushes his hair from his eyes, bracelets jingling. “You can stay dressed. It might even help, if you feel this is about me, and not you, am I right?” He lowers his head a little, when Bai Chi nods; tilts his face in a way that levels him up from beauty to sultry, and adds, “It’s hot, anyway. You, like that, still mostly clothed, and me, all spread out bare for you. You can do whatever you want with me, Bai Chi.”

Bai Chi shuts his eyes and tugs at his ear, momentarily overtaken by the intensity of the image. Zhao Zhen immediately reaches over from where he’s kneeling, and presses his hands down, firm, on his trousered thighs. It’s good, the weight of it. It’s good.

He exhales, and Zhao Zhen leans in, licking at one of his hickeys. 

Shivering, he returns from the inside of his head; returns to here. He meets Zhao Zhen’s smile with a smile of his own and— and yeah, Zhao Zhen looks lovely; he always looks lovely, grinning knowingly beneath the pinning weight of Bai Chi’s attention.

Bai Chi hasn’t lost count of the number of times he’s memorised the sight of Zhao Zhen, but perhaps most people would have. He has a lot of memories, carefully stored and categorised: Zhao Zhen like this, all naked and happy and beyond beautiful, definitely. But Zhao Zhen in other ways, too: drinking coffee in their kitchen; reading old books in the lounge, while Bai Chi writes reports; playing with Lisbon; holding Bai Chi’s hand as they walk in public, practically vibrating with joy and satisfaction, and just daring anyone to say a word.

Zhao Zhen is so free with his feelings. Is so free with his space, with his time, with his body against Bai Chi’s. 

It makes Bai Chi warm inside. 

Zhao Zhen picks up the rope, the colour of it no doubt intentionally chosen to be gorgeous against his complexion, and talks about it as they sit together. He talks about what he thinks he’d like; talks about how he’s wanted to do this before, but hasn’t trusted the other people he’s taken to bed. He strokes the rope through his fingers as he speaks; winds it around his knuckles, eyes dark. He talks about what it feels like, even this, even just this, just running around the rope across his skin while Bai Chi touches him. 

Bai Chi kisses in an arc across his shoulder; in a line down his arm. He tracks what he has researched, in his mind, even as he pays attention to his boyfriend’s words. He scrolls online guides, internally; asks questions, externally, about safety and medical shears. Their words track back and forth between them, even as he moves forwards and down, even as he traces his mouth along the pale insides of Zhao Zhen’s thighs.

Zhao Zhen trails the soft ends of the rope, tiny threads of linen, across his wrists, where they rest upon Zhao Zhen’s knees. 

Surprisingly, the sensation sends goosebumps down his arms.

He sits up and takes the rope in his own hands. He lets that image of Zhao Zhen, tied up handsomely, wash back across his mind. Says, softly, “How are you this beautiful.”

Zhao Zhen lies down upon the bed, eyebrows raised and mouth cheerful, and stretches his bare arms — obediently, pointedly — towards the headboard.

Nothing elaborate today, they’ve agreed, during all their talking, but Zhao Zhen is still shivering, as Bai Chi slides his bracelets off.

He presses Zhao Zhen’s lower arms together, folds the rope in half, and begins to bind his wrists, movements slow and steady. He plays the instructions for a double-column tie in his mind, using the centre loop to connect his boyfriend to the bedhead. The rope is gorgeous against trembling skin, and he leans in and kisses it. He nuzzles Zhao Zhen’s hands; licks at the place he has seen him apply perfume in the mornings, a sweet spot he has to dip his tongue in to reach, in between the ropes. 

The knot is snug, rather than tight, which is good, but he’s barely satisfied with the aesthetics of it, compared to the style of those online. When he crawls back down the bed to get a better look, though, he finds Zhao Zhen already shaken: heavy eyed, flushed face, hard-on twitching. He has spread his legs, as well, as though they, too, are tied, apart, at the other end of the bed. 

Bai Chi finds himself thinking, shockingly, _next time_.

Zhao Zhen inhales, unsteadily, when their eyes meet. “Talk to me,” he says, before opening his mouth to the kiss that Bai Chi is leaning in for. 

Bai Chi slips his tongue in and Zhao Zhen sucks at it, moaning, before he pulls away. Zhao Zhen nips at his lower lip as he goes.

“Tell me what you’re thinking, Xiao Bai. Your face looks like you’re into this, but I want to hear the words. I can’t exactly palm your dick right now to check.”

Bai Chi knows full well that his obviously-enthusiastic dick is perfectly visible through the lines of his trousers but he smiles reassuringly anyway, and kisses Zhao Zhen again. He presses his mouth to Zhao Zhen’s hair, along his jaw; sucks an earlobe.

“It’s strange,” he says, as he slides one leg over Zhao Zhen’s body; as he straddles, pants tight, at Zhao Zhen’s naked hips. “It’s strange not to have your hands on me, when we’re doing this.”

He lets his own hands touch and pet where he fancies, comfortable in the knowledge that he has permission; comfortable in the knowledge that his touch is welcomed. He grinds down, just a little, against Zhao Zhen’s dick. The sound that his movements punch out of Zhao Zhen’s mouth is almost moritfyingly obscene.

He soothes a hand along the rise of Zhao Zhen’s left hip bone. Says, “It’s strange, but it’s interesting. To feel like I can… like I can…”

Zhao Zhen’s lips are pink from his lipstick, and wet from their kissing. “Do you feel like you can do whatever you want to me?” he asks, voice low and rough.

“Mmm,” Bai Chi admits, agreeable, content with this assessment. He leans in to tease Zhao Zhen’s nipples, the right with his fingers and the left with his mouth. “I feel like I can— like I can take what I want. Like I can give what I want. Which… it’s not as if I can’t do that anyway, I mean, but it’s— it’s different. It’s control.”

Zhao Zhen’s hips buck up against him, hard, and slightly uselessly, given how weighted down they are by Bai Chi’s body. 

“Don’t move your legs,” says Bai Chi mindlessly, letting himself deliberately not think as he leans forwards further, as he slides his hands along Zhao Zhen’s sides and up along his arms. 

Zhao Zhen moans at the instruction; turns his head and tries to kiss him. “Like they’re tied,” he agrees, then moans again, as Bai Chi grips tighter. “They’re as good as tied. I won’t move them, Bai Chi. I’ll be good.”

Bai Chi comes to a hard mental stop, hands curved around Zhao Zhen’s elbows. He feels his head go light; feels his mind start to empty, like it usually takes Zhao Zhen’s hands to achieve, like it usually takes Zhao Zhen’s mouth, and not with words alone. It’s him whose hips are bucking, now, cloth dragging and rolling against the damp heat of Zhao Zhen’s erection.

With a garbled sound, Zhao Zhen curves his body between his tied hands and his weighed-down hips. 

The noise hauls Bai Chi into himself, and he scoots back, scoots down, and squeezes Zhao Zhen’s dick at its base, tight and hard. Zhao Zhen cries out brokenly, gasping, shifting ineffectually beneath Bai Chi’s weight. 

When Zhao Zhen’s breathing settles, Bai Chi presses one hand against his hip, and dips to lick along the length of his dick.

Zhao Zhen keens. 

The thing is, Bai Chi knows exactly what drives his boyfriend crazy but, without Zhao Zhen’s hands bound, he usually would have been grabbed or manoeuvred by now: Zhao Zhen, aroused and happy, has a habit of pressing Bai Chi into the bed; has a habit of taking on the majority of the work with his own clever body, with his own clever hands. He likes, extremely intently, to focus on making Bai Chi unravel into a floating, wondrous mess.

As much as Bai Chi loves that, he’s finding it intoxicating to have his boyfriend laying beneath him, instead; to have Zhao Zhen be the one pressed down into the pillows. 

Bai Chi strokes and licks, sucks and kisses; pulls back and _grips_ , whenever Zhao Zhen gets close to coming.

It could almost feel mean, keeping Zhao Zhen on the edge of it, making him groan and cry out, but it doesn’t, it feels— it feels like a good kind of control, the kind that Bai Chi so rarely experiences. He’s in control of this; in control of the rolling motions of his boyfriend’s slender hips; in control of the feelings leaking from Zhao Zhen’s mouth and dick, the muddle of words and sighs and straining.

“So good,” Zhao Zhen is gasping. “Knew you’d be so good, Bai Chi, ah,” and it sounds rough; it sounds extravagantly ruined.

It descends into a shout, as Bai Chi finally slides his mouth the whole way down.

He likes the feel of this, likes the taste of it; likes the smell of Zhao Zhen, amplified here, multiplied in the lines of his legs against his groin, in the soft wrinkles of his balls, in the velvet slide of skin over hardness. He’s not entirely sure if he would like it, a sensory overload, if it were someone else’s dick— but it isn’t, it’s Zhao Zhen’s, and he adores it.

Bai Chi begins to move his head, up and down, tongue trailing flat as he goes.

He watches Zhao Zhen’s reaction through his lashes, and he multitasks: feels this, intensely, and thinks, too, of the more complex rope ties he’d seen while researching. He had considered them, then, with some discomfort; had been imagining himself within their confines. He recasts Zhao Zhen into that role, now, pretty, and mewling in red — pretty, and confident in Bai Chi’s competence — pretty, and laid out beneath him like he knows, _knows_ , that Bai Chi will never do anything he doesn’t want. Bai Chi listens to the sounds of him, wild and unselfconscious; feels the taste of him, salt and musk; watches the trembling of Zhao Zhen’s belly. 

He feels the heat of Zhao Zhen’s trust in him burn like fire across his skin. 

Bai Chi pulls off Zhao Zhen’s dick with a soft _pop_ and a kiss, determined not to come in his pants. 

Zhao Zhen protests, incoherent and dazed, but he still does not move his legs — he keeps them in place, as though they really are tied, even as he stares, blinking and slightly lost, at what Bai Chi is doing. 

Bai Chi scrambles from the bed, and takes off his trousers and underwear. 

Kissing as he goes, he then unties the rope from Zhao Zhen’s wrists — (“They’re still… they’re still tied,” he insists, flying in the face of all logic, when Zhao Zhen starts to protest, “They’re tied just like your feet are.” Zhao Zhen bites down on his lip and full-body trembles again) — and he brings the red rope down with him, as he returns to straddling Zhao Zhen’s thighs. He trails the soft tassels along his boyfriend’s chest. Down his hips. Across his thighs.

Zhao Zhen is making noises again, dragged up from deep within his belly. 

Bai Chi slides their hips back together and, without the cloth of his trousers between them, the heat of their dicks is even headier. He half expects Zhao Zhen to sit up at the sensation — to take over, to focus on making Bai Chi feel good, like he usually would — but his boyfriend just writhes as though he is, in fact, still tied to the bed. A glance shows that Zhao Zhen is gripping the headboard hard enough to make his fingertips white.

Bai Chi is struggling to swallow. He can feel the heat of aroused embarrassment on his face at what he is planning — thinks he is probably blushing almost as red as the rope — but he follows his instinct anyway. He wraps his hand around both their dicks and then trails the rope around his hand. He’s not tying them, not at all, but the red is so pretty against Zhao Zhen’s dick and it looks— it looks really, really hot. 

He says as much, out loud.

“ _Fuck_ ,” breathes Zhao Zhen, holding his head up somewhat awkwardly to see. His pupils are blown, teeth biting at his lip. He lets his head drop back against the bed, lips parted. He’s still acting like he’s tied up. “Fuck, babe. _Fuck._ ”

Bai Chi smoothes the soft rope against their dicks; lets it roll beneath and above his fingers, as he closes his hand around them, and begins to move his hips. He slides his dick up against Zhao Zhen’s, into the tight circle of his fist and the gentle, strangely shifting sensation of the rope.

Zhao Zhen’s whole body strains against his hold on the headboard, against the weight of Bai Chi’s body on his thighs. He pushes and he twists, hips shoving his dick jerkily, out of control, against Bai Chi’s hand.

Bai Chi leans into the increasingly blank slate of his thoughts, half-drowns in the intensity of it. He moans, as Zhao Zhen comes within his fist, comes against his dick, comes across the rope and his belly. He comes himself at the heat of it, undone by the sight of Zhao Zhen’s face; undone by the tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, by his head flung back, by his dark hair spilled across the bed, and his lips bitten crimson. 

“Zhao Zhen, Zhao Zhen,” Bai Chi cries, lost and shaking, mind white.

It takes some long moments to come back to himself. Steading his hand against the familiar rise-and-fall of Zhao Zhen’s ribs he manages, after a while, stutteringly, to say, “You’re all untied, now.”

Zhao Zhen surges up, wobbly, a strangled sound upon his lips. He presses his hands against Bai Chi’s face, against Bai Chi’s shoulders, into the mess on Bai Chi’s stomach. He laughs at himself, easily, and then wipes his hands clean, if somewhat disgustingly, on the cloth of Bai Chi’s shirt. At least it means they are dry, though, when he winds his fingers into Bai Chi’s hair and kisses him, long and soft and gentle. 

“You did so good,” Zhao Zhen is saying, “You did amazingly.”

“Your hands are so great,” Bai Chi responds, nonsensically, and still catching his breath. “I love your hands, I love them so much; I love you.”

Zhao Zhen laughs again, helpless and bright, says, “I love you too, handsome.” He splays his fingers across Bai Chi’s chest, finally shucking his open shirt off of him, and then cleans the both of them with a cloth pulled from beneath a pillow. Still grinning, he manoeuvres them until they’re laying, together, on their sides; Bai Chi curled up loosely and Zhao Zhen wrapped along his back, one arm across Bai Chi’s chest and the other gentle against Bai Chi’s nape.

Bai Chi wriggles his butt back against Zhao Zhen’s soft dick, the position warm and comforting, and whispers, “We can do that again if, if you want.”

“You’ve got _ideas_ now, haven’t you?” says Zhao Zhen cheerfully, and nibbles, softly, on Bai Chi’s ear. 

Bai Chi squirms, but doesn’t disagree. 

“I can hear you _thinking about it_ ,” Zhao Zhen whispers, delighted. He snuggles in, intimately, practically broadcasting satisfaction as he slings a leg across Bai Chi’s knee, and hooks them closer still. 

The red rope curves around them, a messy ampersand. 

Zhao Zhen’s hands are still moving — his clever fingers a comfort, as they skate across Bai Chi’s skin — when Bai Chi slides into sleep, grounded beneath the familiar weight of Zhao Zhen’s embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Negotiations', by Rae Armantrout:
> 
> _and a current  
>  runs between us  
> where our toes touch._
> 
> _It feels unconditional._


End file.
